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Epione

In the last trailer for Wonder Woman there was also another character, very briefly seen as she seems to be tending to Diana‘s wounds: that’s Epione, who’ll be portrayed by Eleanor Matsuura. We don’t know much of her role in the upcoming movie, apart of course from the fact that she’ll be an Amazon, and that she’ll be one of Wonder Woman‘s earliest friends and companions on Themyscira. Actually, it’s more than likely that most of the Amazons will be just cameos in the film, and Epione might not be an exception to that…especially considering that even in the comics she’s quite a secondary character. Let’s see together.

As all Amazons, Epione was born the moment some goddesses from Olympus (Aphrodite, Artemis, Hestia, Athena and Demeter) decided to create a new spawn of demigods able to protect the world from the ongoing and spreading wars. Collecting the souls of the women who had been murdered by men over history, the goddessesses created for them new superhuman bodies using the mystical clay from the bottom of the Aegean Sea, giving birth to the ultimate messengers of peace, the Amazons. Epione was among the most influent Amazons, as she was the chief healer: she loyally followed Queen Hippolytain her quest to save the world from men’s violence, and she kindly tended to the wounded ones the Amazons found on their way; while her sisters also used violence when it was necessary, Epione brought relief, solace and healing, tending to both the innocents and the enemies, spreading the Amazons’ way of life in the world as best as she could. Then, the machinations of the god Aresforced the Amazons to abandon their active mission in the world, and they founded the city of Themyscira, an independent nation that stood on an island, acting as a ray of light in the darkness. In Themyscira, Epione was confirmed with her title, and she was entrusted with the care and administration of the Island of Healing, a secured place in which she could follow her patients at the best of her possibilities, not only curing them, but also granting them a time of peace and relax, away from the others as long as they fully recovered. Just as she had brought her arts in the world while the Amazons walked it, now Epione did the same for her sisters in the utopian city they had built. But that would have not lasted long as it was.

Epione was among the ones captured, chained and repeatedly raped by Hercules, Theseus and their men, an army Themyscira had given shelter and hospitality to. Thanks to the intervention of Athena, the Amazons managed to have their lives spared, but the city had been destroyed, and the scars were hard to forget. Painfully, Epione witnessed to the first Amazonian civil war, which ended in a schism: Hippolyta’s sister Antiopegave up on the way of peace, and decided to lead a group of rogue Amazons to Athens to exact her revenge on the invaders; Hippolyta banished her own sister and whoever chose to follow her, so that Themyscira’s population decreased drastically. Epione was given a choice as well, but she chose to stand by Hippolyta’s side, as she firmly believed in the original purpose and vocation of the Amazons to bring peace, understanding and empathy to the world, rather than vengeance and destruction. In the following years she helped her sisters in rebuilding Themyscira, obviously putting a particular effort in the Island of Healing. She also helped the ones who were still suffering from the wounds and the humiliations suffered during Hercules’ invasion to accept, control and eventually erase all the pain and the anger that the episode had brought along. A moment of happiness arrived when Hippolyta was rewarded with a daughter, Diana, who was kind of adopted by the entire community. Epione taught Diana part of her knowledge…and even became her “accomplish”, the moment a man, Steve Trevor, came ashore on Themyscira, obviously needing some medical attention after crashing with his plane. She would have supported her in resuming Amazons’ peace mission in the outside world, trying to quel Hippolyta’s worries in the meanwhile, working for making Themyscira a beacon of hope for mankind once again.

Epione is a gentle and kind soul, whose very existence is dedicated to lessening the pain of others. As an Amazon, she possesses superhuman strength, speed, durability, stamina and reflexes, and she’s a skilled fighter with virtually any weapon, but she rarely uses violence, preferring her role as a healer. As the chief healer of Themyscira, she’s able to cure virtually any wound of both body and soul, and even to dissolve certain evil incantations (it was her who cured Hippolyta from the spell Circe had cast upon her). More than anyone else, Epione lives the Amazons’ original purpose of bringing peace and healing to a war-thorn world, and she tries her best to live up to that mission every day of her life.

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